The Laphroiag 8 Year 2005 from The Exclusive Malts

Tasting notes:
On the nose, we got oat cakes, over-toasted, with pineapple.  And, of course, peat.  That reminds me:  a peat log and a pineapple walk into a bar.  They sit on each side of an over-toasted oat cake, and the surrealist bartender says, “This is not a bar.”
There’s also menthol on the nose.  A menthol atoll bubbling over with peat magma.  In the house of Atoll.  What’s that smell?  A menthol atoll?  Really?  Not at all.  It’s a Laphroaig.
I take a solid slug of this dram, and goddamn, I am suffused with Islay.  The entire 4 hour tour just happened in four seconds in the mouth, like a Terrence Malick film without the father beating the child and without the dinosaur on the beach.  OK, maybe with the dinosaur on the beach.  Working a little harder on the mouth, we get a hodge-podge note like a peppermint pork chop, or maybe peppermint boark–a wild wild boar holiday dish crafted by hipsters at a killer foodie establishment.
The finish is like drinking cinder juice from burnt logs, or maybe eating burned violins in a performance art piece.  There are also notes of regular cigarettes alongside the aforementioned menthol ones, which reminds me:  A menthol cigarette and a regular cigarette walk into a bar.  A pipe at the end of the bar calls out, “Nice butt.”  The menthol takes exception and asks the bartender to throw the pipe out.  The surrealist bartender says, “This is not a pipe.”

Rating: